


Hands

by Psuedo_sweetheart



Category: Andromeda Six (Visual Novel)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29851797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psuedo_sweetheart/pseuds/Psuedo_sweetheart
Summary: "How could they possibly walk away from June in his greatest hour of need?  The hands that were currently ripping the cable connecting machine to monster, had once pulled them from the rubble of a bombed out city.  Had held them when they were weak, had clenched into fists in preparation to protect them."
Relationships: Juniper "June" Nyux/Traveler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Hands

June’s fists were clenched at his sides, and it seemed like everything about him was growing, like a looming shadow as the sun starts to set. His muscles bulged, shoulders tense and hunched forward, but that wasn’t what truly alarmed Pandora- it was the green. 

A virulent viridian, had lit June up from within, like an eerie imitation of a Tilaari’s luminous glow. It was only his blood though, not his skin. Pandora could literally his veins, a root system nurtured and grown by Orionite, right here in this very lab. 

Pandora had to take deep, steadying breaths, to try and stop their trembling. They felt like they might shake right out of their skin, just thinking about June being hooked up to these machines, and they knew they couldn’t even begin to imagine what he’d been through and what he was going through now. 

It made them feel helpless, as they watched him punch the cylinder that was prison and home, torture chamber and womb, with a roar of fury that made everyone in the room instinctively flinch away. Despite the glass having to have been several inches thick, it cracked under the onslaught like it was made of hardened sugar. One more hit and it exploded, fragments of glass flying and a gush of a strangely, metallic scented, chemical solution, rushing under their boots.

Pandora heard Bash curse and Aya whimper from behind them, Vexx’s frantic gesturing for them to leave, briefly catching their eye. But Pandora didn’t move. 

How could they possibly walk away from June in his greatest hour of need? The hands that were currently ripping the cable connecting machine to monster, had once pulled them from the rubble of a bombed out city. Had held them when they were weak, had clenched into fists in preparation to protect them. Those hands had once cupped their face so gently, Pandora had felt split open and utterly safe, all at once. 

Pandora saw no option other than to unsling their shotgun from its holster, and step farther into the room. Their hands might not be able to do as much damage as June’s, but Pandora could think of no better use for a gun, than to help June like he’d helped them.

“What are you doing?” Bash hissed, grabbing their arm and trying to drag them toward the exit.

Digging in their heels, Pandora nodded toward June, who was tearing a bigger hole in the cylinder with his bare hands, green blood flowing down his arms as he grasped the jagged glass.

“I’m going to help him, obviously.”

“I don’t think he needs help right now, Pandora. He needs to get this out of his system, and then he’ll be back to the June we all know and love.”

“He’s still June,” Pandora said firmly, pulling their arm out of Bash’s grip.

They turned back just in time to see June wrenching the creature through the hole he’d made and throwing it on the ground.

It landed with a revolting squelching noise, still twitching, almost like it was gasping for air in a desperate and final attempt to survive- until June growled, and stepped on it’s head, squashing it as if it had all the density of an orange.

Pandora shivered, their fingers tightening on their gun as a well of terror started to rise in their throat, making them feel like they might start choking on pure fear. Before they could, they swallowed, and the feeling eased enough that they could think again. 

Just because June had come from this lab, didn’t mean these creatures could be someone like him. But if June saw himself as a monster, could it be that he thought this is what should have been done to him? To Jules? 

Pandora didn’t know. They didn’t know enough to say, and they were too scared to ask. Not because they thought June might release his fury on them instead, but because they couldn’t bear the thought of making him explain the horrors he’d been through. Not here. Not now. Not like this, with all his nightmares come to life around him. 

They would simply have to trust in June’s capacity for compassion, something he’s never given them reason to doubt. June knew this place. He knew the people who ran it. If the information he’d looked through told him these were monsters, and nothing else, then Pandora would trust him, just like they always had.

With that thought, Pandora straightened their spine and shifted their grip on their shotgun. 

Lifting it over their head, they slammed the butt into a monitor screen. It shattered, and they shouldered their gun and pulled the trigger, blasting the computer’s insides into a molten mess of wires and fried circuitry. 

They’d just stepped toward the next monitor, when they heard June, speaking to Aya and Bash.

“Get them out of here,” he snarled. “Go and place the other bombs. I'll meet you soon.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone,” Pandora whipped around, snarling right back at him. 

Everyone in the room startled at their ferocity, except perhaps Vexx, who was too far away from Pandora to read his expression.

June looked over his shoulder at them, holding his head with his clean hand.

The green glow in his veins had spread till it was visible even along his face, making his eyes look like there truly was something else inside him, staring out at them with murderous intent, fueled by incandescent rage. This was not the man Pandora knew. 

But it was part of him. 

“I’ll be fine. I’m only sorry you had to be here to see what I really am.”

The shame dripping from those words, tore at Pandora’s heartstrings, but they were furious too.

“I am so sick of angry men, telling me what to do, and what to believe,” they snapped, as they tossed their shotgun to the side.

June’s body might have transformed, but his heart hadn’t. Or perhaps it had, but it had happened in this lab, a long time ago, and it had ended with a monster, tearing off the hand that had fed it poison, before deciding to make its own hands calloused, but kind.

Ignoring Vexx’s shout of their name, Aya’s gasp, and Bash’s reaching arms, Pandora marched up to this monster June was so scared and ashamed of. 

They had meant what they said to Bash. This was June, and they refused to be scared of the man who had given them so much and never asked for a single thing in return. The power in his blood might terrify them, but in the end, Pandora knew June was stronger even than Orionite- if he wasn’t, he would never have left this place. He would never have been able to make himself human. 

“No matter what you can do, or what you look like, you’re still just a person first, Juniper Nyux,” Pandora said, looking steadily into unfamiliar, glowing, eyes and naming them. Vaguely, they wondered if Jules had done the same thing. They knew he would have, if he’d gotten the chance.

“And just like every other damn person in the universe, you didn’t choose to exist, and you didn’t choose the abilities you have.”

Closing their eyes, Pandora made themselves take a deep breath and release some of their anguished fury on June’s behalf, in a heavy, wavering, sigh. 

They wanted June to see himself through their eyes, they wanted to wash away the shame he didn’t deserve to be stained with, no matter how green he became. When they opened their eyes again, they kept their gaze locked to his as they slowly reached out and cupped his huge fists in their palms, refusing to tremble when they felt the warm, living, power of the Orionite, pulsing under his skin. 

Pandora felt like they were handling something unimaginably dangerous, but also terribly delicate.

“The people who made these hands, might have hoped to create a monster- but they failed. Monsters, don’t name their brothers. Monsters, don’t save strangers. You’ve chosen to cherish and protect, and sometimes, protecting what is good, means destroying what is evil. The only monster I see in this room, is the absent one who created this place.”

June looked down at them, his brows furrowed as though he was trying to peer straight into their soul. Like he didn’t believe them.

Undaunted, Pandora stepped closer, “You don’t have to hide from me, because I know these are the hands of a miracle, not a monster, and I won’t be told differently.” 

Still moving slowly, giving him plenty of time to pull away, Pandora raised one of June’s hands to their lips, just as he had theirs on that first day of training- yet another time his hands had helped them.

“I don’t want you to hold back,” they said, echoing themselves, and still meaning every word despite the drastic change in context.

They placed an achingly tender kiss on glowing knuckles, feeling the pulse of alien power under their lips, and letting their heart quake in their chest in abject terror, but still refusing to let go.

Pandora would never, ever, let go of these hands, no matter what they looked like, or what they were covered in. Sometimes, mercy had to be delivered in a closed fist. Sometimes, kindness was strong enough to clench around the throat of those who would play god, and then also, miraculously, strong enough to let go. And if anyone in the universe could be trusted with this kind of power- it would be this man.

June was looking at them like they were the one who’d transformed into something incomprehensibly powerful, and Pandora felt his hands start to tremble, before he twisted them in their grip, taking their hands into his. 

“You terrify me sometimes,” he murmured. “You can make people believe impossible things.”

“That’s impossible,” Pandora said, a mischievous smile crooking their lips, “because nothing is impossible- only improbable.”

A familiar expression overtook June’s face. That slightly exasperated, but mostly amused, and very fond look he gave them whenever they said something vaguely true but also ridiculous, and Pandora couldn’t hold back their laughter.

They had been right. It’s just June. Just the man who kept his monster on a leash, so he could use it as a guardian. Just the man who couldn’t stop fighting his demons even to sleep, yet still had the energy to be kind. Just the man with the hands strong enough to tear down mountains, and also hold together the broken pieces of Pandora’s heart. 

Pandora squeezed June’s hands in theirs, and even though the hot, thrumming, power of the Orionite still made them feel faint, it only made them hold on all the tighter. 

These were June’s hands- these hands would catch them, if they fell.

Pandora’s hands might be meager in comparison, but if their hands failed, perhaps their heart could make up for it. 

Looking up into the luminous, green eyes, of a man who was supposed to be a monster, but who decided to be an angel instead, Pandora really, really, hoped so.

They hoped they could be the place, where these strong hands could come to rest.


End file.
